THE FINANCIER
law and morality, the newspapers, the preachers, the
police, and the public moralists generally, so loud in their
denunciation of evil in humble places, were cowards all
when it came to corruption in high ones. They did not
dare to utter even a feeble squeak until some giant had
accidentally fallen and they could do so without danger
to themselves. Then, 0 heavens, what a palaver! What
beatings of tom-toms! Run now, good people, for you
may see clearly how evil is dealt with in high places! It
made him smile. Such hypocrisy! Such cant! Still,
so the world was organized, and it was not for him to set
it right. Let it wag as it would. The thing for him to
do was to get rich and hold his own—to build up a seem-
ing of virtue and dignity which would pass muster for
the genuine thing. Force would do that. Quickness of
wit. And he had these. Let the world wag. " I satisfy
myself," was his motto; and it might well have been em-
blazoned upon any coat of arms which he could have con-
trived to set forth his claim to intellectual and social
nobility.
But this matter of Aileen, which had come to a definite
point, was up for consideration and solution at this pres-
ent moment, and because of his forceful, determined
character he was not at all disturbed by the problem it
presented. It was a problem, like some of those knotty
financial complications which presented themselves daily;
but it was not insoluble. What did he want to do? Ha
couldn't leave his wife and fly with Aileen, that was cer-
tain. He had too many connections. He had too many
subtle things to bind him. Besides, he was not at all
sure that he wanted to. He did not intend to leave his
growing interests, and at the same time he did not intend
to give up Aileen immediately. The unheralded mani-
festation of interest on her part was too attractive. Mrs.
Cowperwood was no longer what she should be physically
and mentally, in so far as he was concerned. To be sure,
she was devoted to him in her quiet way, not passionately
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